Emotions, cookies and long-term goals, what is the relation? A study on the correlation between self-control and reappraisal

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate a relation between self-control and reappraisal. Self-control is seen as the willpower to achieve long-term goals and reappraisal is an emotion regulation strategy. In general, self-control is future-oriented and emotion regulation strategies are short-term-oriented. What will happen when reappraisal is manipulated to also be future-oriented? This leads us to the research question: how are selfcontrol and reappraisal related? It is hypothesized that they correlate positively, only when reappraisal is manipulated with long-term goals. Data for this study was collected by an online experiment, which consisted of three conditions: a control condition where participants acted as they normally would do, an experimental condition with reappraisal instructions in combination with short-term goals and another experimental condition with reappraisal instructions in combination with long-term goals. These instructions were given before a sad clip was showed. Differences between these conditions in relation with self-control were analyzed. The results reveal that there is no relation between self-control and reappraisal, even if there is involvement of long-term goals. Although, it is more likely that deficits in the study itself caused these results; due to a low power the results can be misrepresented and it is assumed that participants did not follow carefully their instructions. From the literature it appeared that there should be a relation, however it is unclear if this is positive or negative. Therefore, this study concludes that long-term goals could still be the missing link and several leads for future research are also given.